Sports

Updated at 8:48 p.m. ET

After a day of steady rain on Churchill Downs, it was Justify who managed to cross the finish line first in the mud.

Justify brought Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith a second Derby victory. Smith previously won aboard Giacomo in 2005. Bob Baffert, the trainer of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, seals his fifth Derby win.

For African-American athletes, sports will never be just a game, says sports writer Howard Bryant. "This is a question of black body versus black brain," he says. "In the United States, the black body has always been what's been compensated — whether you can sing, whether you can dance, whether you can ... work manually. That's what we care about. That's the currency."

More than four decades after pingpong diplomacy forged ties between the U.S. and China, thawing a relationship had been frozen in hostility, two long-time opponents have again reached across the net for a historic handshake.

A "mandatory" trip to a nightclub where they were told to escort wealthy sponsors. A topless photo shoot that male spectators were invited to attend. Those are two of the main allegations made by cheerleaders from Washington's NFL team about a 2013 trip to Costa Rica to photograph the squad's swimsuit calendar.

The allegations described in a New York Times story stem from a trip to the Occidental Grand Papagayo, an adults-only resort on Culebra Bay, on Costa Rica's west coast.

Updated at 9:25 p.m. ET

Wembley, London's iconic national stadium, could soon be owned by an American.

The Football Association of England, which owns the stadium, said it had received an offer from Shahid Khan, the billionaire owner of the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars. Wembley is home to England's national football team.

An NCAA commission is calling on the NBA to reopen its draft to athletes who are 18 and have not attended college, citing problems with the "one-and-done" system that sees elite players jump to the pros after their freshman year.

Created last fall after a federal investigation put an exclamation point on a growing list of crises and conflicting priorities in the sport, the Commission on College Basketball issued its recommendations on Wednesday.

Amnesty International has given Colin Kaepernick its top human rights award for his public opposition to racial injustice. The former San Franciso 49ers quarterback is Amnesty's 2018 Ambassador of Conscience

Teri Schultz reports for our Newscast unit that the "take a knee" campaign that won Kaepernick honor likely cost him his job:

Lance Armstrong has agreed to pay the federal government $5 million to settle fraud allegations that could have resulted in a nearly $100 million penalty. The U.S. Postal Service, which had sponsored the disgraced cyclist's team, argued that Armstrong defrauded taxpayers by accepting millions from the government agency while using performance-enhancing drugs during competition.

Michael Cohen, Hannity, Stormy Daniels, TPP

Australian authorities have shut down a major international surfing event after recreational surfers were attacked by sharks near the site of the competition on the country's southwest coast.

The World Surf League cancelled the remainder of this year's Margaret River Pro, which began April 11 and was to finish on Monday. The decision came after the two surfers, who were not in the competition, were mauled in separate attacks earlier this week at surf spots only a few miles from the event's main venue in West Australia.

Desiree Linden became the first American woman to win the Boston Marathon since 1985 — finishing 26.2 miles in 2 hours, 39 minutes and 54 seconds on Monday.

The 34-year-old two-time Olympian lives in Michigan, and she finished second at the Boston Marathon in 2011. But her victory this week almost didn't happen.

In the cold rain and wind, Linden says she wasn't feeling well and thought about bailing out of the race.

Brett Connolly's idea had to have seemed simple at the outset.

The little girl had been banging away on the glass during warm-ups before the Washington Capitals' first round playoff matchup with the Columbus Blue Jackets. What she lacked in age and stature, she clearly made up for in enthusiasm — so why not give the budding superfan a souvenir she could cherish?

It was a nasty day to run 26.2 miles through Boston. But American Desiree Linden pushed her way through a powerful headwind and cold rain and up Heartbreak Hill to triumph at the Boston Marathon — the first time a U.S. woman has won in 33 years.

Bailey Davis was a Saintsation — a cheerleader for the New Orleans Saints. That is, until she posted a photo of herself in a one-piece lace bodysuit on her private Instagram account.